The 2012 session will be best remembered for its rancorous last-minute battle over civil unions. Yet Aguilar, finishing her second year in office, has quietly built alliances across ideological boundaries. Those alliances helped her pass unusual bipartisan legislation that makes health care more affordable and accessible.

“I’m sort of known as the doctor who wants to give everybody quote, unquote ‘free health care’, which is a little bit of an exaggeration,” the Democrat from Denver told the Gazette. “I’d just like it to be affordable for everybody.”